Sylvia's Journal

We all knew Obi wouldn’t make it to 2023. He left us at the end of September after a long struggle with cancer. Yesterday we sent him off into the hereafter at the same church where he was baptized in 1951, which is also the year I was born. Some 100 people gathered in a giant Catholic Church in Brighton. Obi was a musician extraordinaire. His send-off was full of music, the music wafting high up in the vaulted ceilings to then descend on us like a warm blanket. The acoustics were fit for a king. They were fit for Obi. 

We were mesmerized by the highly choreographed movements of the priest and a few other church officials at the altar, especially the communion ritual, with much filling and wiping of goblets. I knew about this ritual from my childhood when my brother and I snuck into a nearby Catholic church out of curiosity. We weren’t forced to accompany our parents to our protestant church (somewhat like a UU church). It was a small and picturesque building with white-washed walls and few adornments. I grew up in a time when Holland was divided into religious ‘pillars,’ which applied to all spheres of life: schools, political parties, even radio stations, and marriage, with everyone staying in their lane. As a protestant it was not OK to date a Catholic. I don’t know if the Catholics felt the same way.  We even lived somewhat segregated. 

A girl my age who lived on the other end of the street was Catholic. We did not mix much but I do remember she told me about what happened in her church and that she had to confess her sins every week to a priest. I felt sorry for her about the latter, but I was also intrigued by the rituals she talked about. This made attending a Catholic service so much more interesting for a child. That’s why we snuck into the church. 

My father, a fierce anti-papist, was not pleased with our transgression into the Catholic Lane. ‘Liever Turks dan Paaps” (rather Turkish than Papist) was a slogan used during the Dutch revolt against the Spaniards at the end of the 16th century.  Wikipedia, reminded me of where that slogan came from. The Dutch were in such dire straits that they looked for help from the Ottomans to support them in their fight against their common Spanish enemies.

And so here I was, some 60 years later, attending a no holds barred Catholic funeral service. There were a few non-Catholic flourishes, like the violin solo and a procession by the priest and Obi ‘s two best friends carrying the box with his ashes and placing it on a table in front of us. There was a man blowing a conch shell and the sound of Buddhist temple bells. We hadn’t known Obi that long and did not know as much about him, other than that his real name wasn’t Obi – the priest spoke of Dennis returning to God; for us it was Obi going to some other place we couldn’t begin to fathom. Wherever it was, he would be resting in peace according to the priest because he was baptized in that same church; for us he would be resting in peace without the distraction of his no longer functioning body.

Today has turned out to be a day of still and slow – something I had not expected when I woke up this morning. I thought that everything would be conspiring against slow. We had a lot to do to prepare our home for yet another home exchange that starts tomorrow. Most of the work of these exchanges is the removal of clutter. As it turned out, it was the mental decluttering that happened. Several unrelated experiences conspired towards slow and still. I finally saw how the strands came together. It produced an urge to write.

First, I watched Dr. Paul Lam’s video of the Sun Tai Chi form he adapted especially for people with arthritis. He himself was diagnosed with arthritis in his teens. Attenuating the effects of arthritis became his life’s purpose and journey. He has created a movement complete with swag such as plastic wristbands, pins, shirts, badges and more in addition to countless videos and online streaming opportunities.  I have been practicing this form of Tai Chi through a library program that started in the middle of the pandemic. Our teacher offered the classes free to the community, first on Zoom, and finally live at the library green or in the Community Center. Dr. Lam recommends practicing every morning for at least 30 minutes. With my once-a-week practice it is no wonder that, after two years, I am still making many mistakes. And so, this morning, I decided to watch him for free on YouTube and wondered whether I should buy his DVD. That would also mean buying a DVD player for my MacBook just when I had decided to reduce acquiring more stuff.

Dr. Lam’s movement are slower than what we practice. I could see the benefit: there is more balancing (ever so slightly) on one leg, and the stretched muscles have a moment to settle, even if it is for a few seconds. Slow and steady indeed.

I then did my morning meditation which is done through an app of a 7-week coaching program that starts tomorrow on Positive Intelligence. From what I have gleaned so far, the program focuses on two main things: recognizing the parts of oneself that sabotage one’s efforts towards a happy and fulfilling life (especially His Majesty the Judge, assisted by several saboteurs) and our wiser self, the Sage, that doesn’t get triggered and/or move into judging mode. The judge and his saboteur cronies may make us feel good and be helpful in the short run, but never in the long run. The meditations that are part and parcel of the program are about body awareness, and the cultivation of a sense of presence to replace common tendencies to either live in the past (thinking about what is done or should have been done and other regrets) or the future (plans, things to do). The meditations are slow, mindful, and manage to still my perpetually busy mind. Slow and steady indeed. 

The quiet and stillness of watching Dr. Lam and my morning meditation was quickly undone by a long list of unread emails. As if to call out to stay on the path of slow and still, one of the emails contained a link to a remarkable blogpost (Barefoot). I brought me back to still and slow again. The midday meditation anchored me even more in still and slow.

One of my goals for today is (or was, more likely) to finish reading a new book, titled ‘An Invitation to Quaker Eldering.’ As Clerk of our local Quaker meeting, I feel the need to understand the idea of eldering better, and learn how anyone can ‘grow’ into eldering. Several Quaker Elders describe their experiences as Elders, including the authors of the book, who managed to put into words the great mystery of spiritual formation.  They write, “The [spiritual] formation may be a slow process, and it may be hidden from us. There may also be the equivalent of sudden growth spurts. Sometimes we are formed on a noticeably bumpy path, which may involve finding ourselves in the refiner’s fire (Malachi 3:2), submitting to burning away of that which inhabits the fullness of God’s spirit within. It is yielding as clay to the potter’s hand. (page 37). 

Burning away, another metaphor for decluttering. My reading of the book is slow, but not of the ‘slow-and-steady’ kind. Rather it is slow because I am constantly interrupted by mind chatter, to do lists and seeing the clutter around me that needs to be removed. All this gets in the way of the kind of deep dive reading of the book that I would prefer over a fast skim through. 

The feeling of getting rid of stuff that gets in the way of quiet, still, slow and steady is liberating and makes me want to believe that one day I can summon still, quiet,  and uncluttered at will.

I have always wanted to attend the Northampton Friends Meeting when we are staying a weekend with Sita and Jim. But on Sundays we tend to leave to return home and there is no time. This time because of the long weekend our day of our departure was on a Monday. We had another whole day to fill with activities with the kids. Why not start slow: I wanted to give the local Quakers a try.

I have often had to explain Quakers to people in Africa, which is hard enough, but at least most of them adhere to one religion or another and there is some common vocabulary. But try to explain Quakers to a 7- and 10-year-old who have no idea what religion is all about, have never set foot inside a church and whose dad gets kind of triggered when hearing words like Bible, Jesus, or God.  Some years ago, the parents told us that they had decided to give their kids a good religious education and joined a church. I was both surprised and happy until I looked at the calendar. It was April 1.

I received permission from the parents to take them to the local Friends Meeting. I made sure there was childcare, and off we went. The threshold to the Quaker ‘church’ for kids who are raised in an atheist household is low: they don’t have to get up early and rush out of the house, they don’t have to dress up, they don’t have to know their bible, or bring one, they don’t have to be quiet for long, and they don’t have to sing hymns.  I could tell they were a little curious because there was no sign of resistance. They still wanted some sort of an explanation of what would happen, but I didn’t know anything about the children’s program, what they would do, or how many kids there would be. What I could tell them with certainty was that the grown-ups were going to sit in silence in a room with other grown-ups and that chances were the silence would last the entire hour. “What? Saffi said, an hour long of boring?” They could not imagine such a thing.

As it turned out, they were the only kids, with two adults staying with them, a ratio of one-to-one, in a room full of books and art supplies. Instead of Saffi clinging to me and not wanting to be left alone with strangers, as I had imagined could occur, they immediately started to explore the possibilities. Their eyes always light up when there are art supplies because that feels like home, which is full of art stations.

Ten minutes before the end of the Meeting for Worship the kids came in to join the grown-ups. Saffi’s managed the silence by coloring in the Quakers-for-kids brochure that included two mandalas and a blank square to draw one’s idea of a peaceful world. She drew a globe with twinkling stars. Faro’s silence was complete as he didn’t bother with the coloring, his brochure left untouched. He sat in silence, probably intrigued by the large TV screen with some 25 little flickering squares representing the remote attenders.

They both had a good experience – you cannot go wrong with them when there are books and art supplies. The kids brochure contained some queries that were about values (sharing toys, seeing something good in someone who annoys you, etc.) – I tried to pry answers from them but it seemed that they had either not explored the queries during their time in the children’s room or done too much of that. Faro had used the time to start working on his Halloween costume. 

We stopped at a coffee shop for Axel’s once-a-day allowance of coffee with caffeine, and then drove to a local harvest festival. Such festivals are everywhere in this very agricultural part of the state. We looked at vintage cars which was boring to all of us except Axel who reminisced about his and his friends’ first cars. We finished the day with more child’s play, but now of the physical kind: jumping and sliding with hundreds of other kids. It was quite a contrast with the beginning of the day. 

Once again, the parents came home with their spectacular botanical art pieces.

In our family we try to give each other Christmas experiences rather than gifts. For the last few years this has meant gift certificates for a workshop of choice at Snow Farm, an arts and crafts center that is close to Sita and Jim’s home in western Massachusetts.

Sita and Jim are enjoying their gift this long weekend in a workshop on Botanical Drawing. Their accomplishments after just one day are already spectacular. We are looking forward to seeing more great works today.

While they are enjoying their time of total immersion in art, we have the kids to entertain. We made it through day 1, leaving me exhausted, even though we didn’t do anything strenuous entertaining a 7- and 10-year-old. Our activities included apple picking in the morning. But this was not the apple picking we did with our kids. Instead of working to get apples (walking, bending, stretching), our picking was limited to filling a bag from a bank of baskets filled with apples, and then having cider donuts and apple cider (hot for us and slushies for the kids) – a caloric uptake instead of a caloric expense.

Next stop was a lovely playground behind a local school where we sat in the sun and occasionally participating in taking a seat on a double seesaw (“trust me, if you and your brother are on one side and your grandparents on the other, you will stay up!”).

Next stop was an expedition to Target to buy some unmentionables, which landed us in a giant traffic jam. As a result, our promised lunch at a place called The Brewery in Northampton was delayed to long after lunch time. Although the name of the restaurant suggests otherwise, there is a menu for kids. Faro, at 10, considers himself above that and choose the adult (massive) hamburger, accompanied by a large coca cola (not usually allowed by his parents). Axel is still getting used to being a heart patient for whom alcohol and coffee are no longer recommended. That was a little difficult in a place called The Brewery. He had to accept occasional sips from my (small) glass of beer. The roles are reversed, I used to be the one sipping from his (large) glasses of beer.

All through the day there were attacks of the ‘gimme’s’ and statements I needed to verify with the parents. At first Faro indicated that his younger sister would gladly buy him a toy out of her pocket money. Then there was an attempt to buy an expensive toy (from the ‘nerf’ family of toys, which seemed to me like weapons). The parents had explicitly forbidden him to get these toys until he was 18. That didn’t keep him from trying over and over to get us to relax the parents’ rules. I think Faro has all the potential to become a great negotiator because of his skill in wearing people out.

After lunch he had pressed us into going to nearby Newbury Comics because he had 15 dollars burning in his pockets, not real dollar bills but the agreement from his mom that they each could spend 15 dollars from their pocket money during their outing with opa and oma. Despite that limit, he kept bringing me boxes of something he wanted that cost 50 dollars or more. His sister on the other hand picked up endless small items but never expressed a need to buy them. I was amazed at the cost of everything. I was also struck about the wealth we have that allow such shops to succeed in their business and how our grandkids take that abundance for granted. 

Back home we parked them in front of the TV and navigated dinner time when no one was hungry after out late lunch except mom (dad was playing music someplace in Amherst). I tumbled into bed at 8:30 and fell asleep within seconds.

I recently finished a book about particle entanglements (The Age of Entanglements by Louisa Gilder). I didn’t understand anything about the physics part, but I loved reading about the lives of these young scientists in pre-war Germany and their amazing intellect. I am always drawn to the articles about particle mechanics and particle dynamics in our weekly New Scientist, even though I don’t understand next to nothing about the topic. I am intrigued by Schrödinger’s cat (dead and alive at the same time) and the idea of multiple universes.  I also love novels about metaverses (the Midnight Library by Matt Haig and Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore).  It’s just that the entanglements and multiple realities resonate with me because I am living in a time of undeniable entanglements and multiple realities (cultures, perspectives). That is, I believe, the draw.

The most problematic entanglements that I experience at this moment are with the companies that order and organize my life. There is Amazon. Axel and I are paying Mr. Bezos an annual fee to be part of his clever ‘Prime’ scheme. It is seductive because we get to read each other’s books and listen to each other’s audiobooks. Not that we do that a lot – we have very different tastes – but it nice to know that we can.

Our two daughters have always disapproved of us trusting an Amazon AI device (Alexa) that let us turn things on and off with a simple voice command (“Alexa, good night). They say our trust in AI from large companies (Amazon, Facebook, Google) is misplaced. And they are probably right. 

But how to disentangle ourselves without moving off the grid? Our libraries, work documents and communication channels are all controlled by these three companies. 

I got a taste of our entanglement with Amazon yesterday.  I decided back in July that there was no point in paying two Prime memberships and canceled mine which ended yesterday. Alexa promptly stopped following our commands. Instead, she proposed an action that we didn’t ask for. It may not be a very serious consequence (which our daughters will probably rejoice in) but who knows what is to follow?

A couple we are doing a home exchange with refused to connect on WhatsApp (“it’s evil”). I had already canceled all my social media over a year ago (no sense of loss there), however WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, is an important communication tool to stay in touch with friends and coaching clients faraway. It serves as a backup when my client’s electricity goes out in the middle of a coaching conversation. I know there are alternatives like Signal, but it will take a lot of effort to convince my network to switch (it may not even be available to them). And what if it that still idealistic company gets absorbed by another evil company?

Many of these companies start out with a lofty mission statement about making the world a better place through technology. But then they get rich, and greed takes over. The ramp goes up, and if it ever goes down, lots of people are dragged down because they got, well, tangled up in the mess.

We will find out in the next couple of days what other fallout there is from my attempt to disentangle, from Amazon, which is only partial because it still stores my books and sells stuff I want, and Axel still has his Prime membership. 

I can’t even begin to think about my entanglement with Google because it is massive and scary. There are more entanglements with smaller companies who have my username and passwords (some used and re-used at other sites). From time to time, I get a warning that they are invaded by dark forces – many of those sites I don’t even use anymore, but I am still entangled with them. Cleaning that mess up will take time I would like to spend otherwise.

On the positive side, I am entangled with my family and friends, many of which have come to support our Afghan adopted daughter and shower her with gifts.

S. has arrived in the US after languishing for 13 months in a center in Abu Dhabi. When the Taliban stormed Kabul, and with that took control of Afghanistan, S. was one of hundreds of thousands who desperately wanted to get out. Attempts to be evacuated by the Dutch military with her older sister, who carries a Dutch passport and happened to be in Kabul at that time, failed twice for both. The third attempt got her sister back to Holland, but S. was not able to make it through a sewage ditch into the airport and went home. I heard all that from her sister. Left to her own devices after that she jumped on the first opportunity to get out and landed in Au Dhabi. Little did she know how long she would stay there. Her brother also got out and went straight to the US and lived at a military based for months. These three siblings that we had gotten to know when we lived in Kabul, had rolled out over the earth like drops of mercury.

We had indicated early on that we would sponsor S. to come to the US. It was an opaque process that was never clarified despite emails, letters and phone calls to US officials in Abu Dhabi. I learned quickly that the center’s adjective (‘humanitarian’) was misplaced. It was more of a detention center. There were those inside and those outside, but no chance to mingle. We stayed in touch via WhatsApp and Botim (Abu Dhabi doesn’t allow phone calls via WhatsApp). I was able to get two friends in Dubai to drop off things she needed. Other than that, there was nothing I could do to get her out. I had even imagined flying there but I would not have been allowed in. 

The horizon of hope (to get out of there) moved from month to month. The first 2 months in that place seemed like an eternity, then 3 months more, then half a year. Finally, after 13 months, without much notice, she was put on a plane to NYC and from there to DC. She lost her iPad, because it had run out of juice during the long trip and nobody told her that electronic devices that cannot be turned on are confiscated. Welcome to the US! I assume she was welcomed by IRC who has taken her under its care (up your annual donation to them!). She was assigned an overworked caseworker, an Afghan woman, received a Smart card and some money ($300), and dropped off at her brother’s apartment in Silver Spring. His resettlement had gone so much faster than hers. All of this was a big surprise to me. Nothing for 13 months and then suddenly, she’s here. 

She is getting her footing in the US. My network has mobilized many more networks and the universe is raining gifts on her: free career counseling and job search advice from a dear friend, a good as new computer from our neighbor. Another friend took her to the library to get a card and an explanation of DC metro’s public transport system. Not that it makes the stress go away of solving major problems like housing and getting an income, but knowing that there are many good people helps in this bewildering experience of America. It is hard to imagine her journey since mid August 2021. I think of Mr. Rogers famous quote, “look for the helpers.’ They re everywhere!

I am not taking the place of her mother, but we have adopted each other as another mother-daughter pair. She sent me a picture of herself, radiant in a local gym that is run by the municipality and that allows her to get out of the cramped apartment (3 adults and 3 children in 2 rooms). Today she attends a workshop on finding a job. I admire her mettle.